Lesion by pandemonium_213

Lesion

It was said that Nimloth descended from the white tree, Celeborn, of Tol Eressëa, and before that, Galathilion of Tirion, created by Yavanna herself as a replica of Telperion.

It's a far cry from that botanical extravagance, thought Mairon as he ran his fingers over Nimloth's bark and marveled at its color and texture:  white like the birches whose yellow leaves fluttered in the autumn wind of Eregion, but smooth like the beeches of drowned Neldoreth.  Now, he was about to seek out its deepest secret.  He pressed the palms of his hands against the trunk, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply.  He let his mind expand to flow into the very substance of the tree. 

Sap thrummed around him as it coursed through the thin layer of tissues that lay just beneath the bark.  Swept up by Its currents, he ascended with the sensation of tumbling head over heels, although he knew his body leaned against the tree.  He squeezed through a narrow channel and walked along twisting corridors until he reached a verdant hall of many pillars.  Scintillae of light sparkled and cascaded like vivid green fountains all about him.  He never tired of watching the weaving of light into the substance of life, but he had work to do, so he pushed himself out of the inner chamber of a leaf to join the currents of sap once again, this time descending. 

Down and down he swam, struggling against the tree's tides until darkness enveloped him. He squirmed through many tunnels to hear water trickling through and into the roots and the sinuous wending of worms through the fecund earth. 

Its foundations are healthy.

He listened for the rush of sap, the lifeblood of Nimloth, and followed the sound to find an upward flow once more. This time, he probed deeper into the heartwood, its chambers golden and silent. 

Seems sound enough. Ah, wait. What's that?

He snaked his way through the wood toward the stench of rot. There it was: black and festering.  The lesion was not a large one, and it might take some years before it spread throughout the tree, but it was enough. He hovered, staring at the infection.

A fungus? Bacterial?  He could not be sure, but it did not matter.  He watched with fascination as the heart of the disease slowly but surely sent out its tendrils.

So like Númenor, rotting from the inside long before I set foot on its shores.  They may as well have handed me their kingdom on a platter.

Tentatively, he reached toward one of the tentacles of the rot. It stung him, like the jellyfish that sometimes floated in the warm waters off the coast of Hyarunastar.  He recoiled and retreated from the heart of the tree to let the streams of sap draw him back to the outer layers of the trunk.

No doubt the Faithful will blame the death of the tree on me, rather than a natural cause, if the disease is allowed to run its course. Best to put the thing out of its misery now, and I know exactly how to accomplish that.

Steeling himself against the inevitable transition from the world of the very small to the world in which he walked and breathed, he opened his eyes.  The king did not even let him catch his breath.

"Well?" Ar-Pharazôn locked his brilliant blue eyes with Mairon's steady gaze.

"The tree will die within a year. Burn it."

"Burn it?"

"Yes, but not a wasteful burning.  Cut it down and bring the wood to the temple.  It shall be burned on the Altar of Fire as an offering to The Giver of Freedom."

"But the tree is tied to the line of kings!"

"That may be, but it is diseased in its heart and will die nonetheless."

Ar-Pharazôn raised his eyes to the fruits of the tree, fulsome and ripe. "At least we might salvage fruits so that a sapling may be grown." 

"Yes, we might do that," agreed Mairon. Not that there's much chance of that. I will see to it that Nimloth is chopped down and all its fruits burned before anything can be salvaged.

"We shall discuss this further," declared the king. "My head aches abominably, and I cannot reach any decision now."

"Very well, my lord." 

Mairon watched Ar-Pharazôn, his broad shoulders hunched with the signs of age, walk into the deep shade of the colonnade that surrounded the Court of Nimloth.  Left alone, Mairon placed his left hand against the tree once more.  Sunlight glanced golden off the ring on his forefinger.

I could cure the disease if I wished, he thought idly. All I need to do is reach back into the heartwood and cauterize the lesion to destroy it and seal it off from the rest of the tree. It would not be that difficult. 

Once again, he found his conscience nagging at him, urging him to cure the tree.  Truly, how hard could it be? This is a unique tree. Doesn't it deserve to live a healthy life, like any of us?

Yet when he envisioned the flames leaping red and gold from the Altar of Fire, the eyes of the temple congregation upon him and their chants in response to his litany, and, he dared to hope, the people's admiration when he took the throne as the ruler of Númenor, an immortal king who would lead them to greater power and greater glory, his conscience was silent.  He let his hand fall from the tree with a last caress from his fingers.